I've been describing Chris Christie as "Noun, verb, Sandy" as a snarky but accurate riff on Vice President Biden's 2007 description of Rudy Giuliani as "A noun, a verb, and 9/11, there's nothing else":

Chris Hayes did America a huge favor last night by explaining what a self-serving, abusive (photo) opportunist Chris Christie really is. Now let's hope people listen, because the New Jersey governor did a great job of pulling the wool over many eyes on election day last Tuesday.

It's shameful how many people admire manufactured optics, cosmetics, and style over policy, character, and substance.

Chris Hayes:

Chris Christie spent the day basking in the glow of his resounding victory last night. But before we get caught up in what he called "the spirit of Sandy" it is worth actually taking a look at the man's record....

The spirit of Sandy that Christie evoked so many times last night is one thing. But the facts of the recovery are something else entirely.

New Jersey received billions of dollars in federal aid to rebuild, and 1.8 billion of that came from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development to get people back in their homes. To get that money, Christie promised that 60% of the funds would be reserved for low to moderate income households. Right now, it appears that Chris Christie is breaking that promise...

The Christie administration has released no information on how the federal money is being spent. What we do know came out of a lawsuit that alleged the Christie administration was "improperly withholding data on the funds."

In response to that suit, Christie's government released information on where just a fraction of it all went. Of that money, only 36.9% went to the people Christie promised he would give it to.

The whereabouts of the rest of the billion of dollars remains a total mystery.

We do, however, know where an additional $25 million in Sandy aid went: to a very well produced ad campaign. In fact, a whopping $7.4 million federal dollars paid for this one commercial.

Turns out the firm hired to run the campaign had been chosen over an advertising firm that had bid 40% less, but did not propose using the governor's family in the spot...

Right now, there are thousands of people still out of their homes a year after the storm hit.... Mortgage defaults are up over the past year in the Sandy-hit areas. 75% of New Jersey residents affected by the storm say people like them have been largely forgotten in recovery efforts.

For many people in New Jersey, Sandy was the worst thing that ever happened to them. For Chris Christie, it could be the best....

Chris Christie is not just benefiting politically from a natural disaster, he is benefiting politically from a natural disaster made more disastrous by his own administration's failure to prepare.

During his first term, Christie de-funded the state's Office of Climate Change and Energy. After Sandy, when reporters filed public records requests to New York and New Jersey, they found that New York City's transit plans for severe storms is detailed in five binders, each three inches thick. New Jersey's transit plan? Three and a half pages with everything blacked out.

Joy Ann Reid:

Chris Christie has perfected this performance of being sort of the great man of the people. That entrances reporters, it enraptures and almost hypnotizes reporters, because it's so "gosh darned everyman," but his actual performance as governor doesn't marry up with the image. Last night he talked about almost as if he was a Marine, not leaving people on the beaches of Normandy. He talked about his big, substantive achievement.

Well, darn it, he hugged people, and people hugged him. It is a minimum standard for a governor to accept federal aid. He didn't do that. And he didn't hate Barack Obama in the process. He gets credit for being able to do that in a Republican party that punishes you for not hating Barack Obama.

Chris Hayes:

That is a low bar....

He is stoking it in his sort of narcissistic fashion. I think Sandy has a potential as a political issue to be his Bain Capital. Because at of end of the day, did you do your job?

Jon Stewart lacerated the myth of Romney's alleged expertise as a venture capitalist the other night. (See video here.) Quite simply, under Mitt's leadership, Bain Capital had a worse investment record than the federal government's backing of alternative energy companies (e.g., Solyndra).

In fact, Romney's record at Bain showed him picking firms that went into bankruptcy at three times the rate of the fed record.

Stewart started by quoting part of Romney's "closing argument" to the American voters:

The government of the United States is not a very good venture capitalist …. [Obama] doesn't just like picking winners and losers, he likes picking losers. Half of the ones [alternative energy companies that the government has invested in under Obama] have gone bankrupt.

[...]

Whoa! So Romney's accusation of a 50 percent bankruptcy rate as a result of Department of Energy financial support (in loans and subsidies) to alternative energy firms is at best actually 8 percent. [...]

So that's 8% failure for government investments in alternative energy firms vs. a 22% bankruptcy record under Mitt Romney's leadership at Bain. [...]

When Romney's bankruptcy record, as he ironically promotes himself as a "job creator," is just about three times the rate of Obama's as president, it's clear the "job creator" is really (particularly when combined with his slash and burn labor strategies) a job destroyer. He's also a liar, and his dissembling is meant to hide one of the greatest myths of the campaign: that private investment is more effective at stimulating the economy, when Romney's own record as the CEO of Bain Capital shows that it isn't.

This is a memorable, creative recap of Willard M. Romney's economic priorities, from gutting education to "let Detroit go bankrupt" to his bankrupting-companies days at Bain to cutting retirement programs to pay for tax breaks for the very rich.

From opposing the auto recovery plan and laying off workers during his time at Bain to gutting education to pay for tax cuts to the rich, the ad runs through the many reasons that if Mitt Romney wins, the middle class will lose.

Learn more, please visit Romnopoly.org

Supporting Facts for "Romnopoly":

Romney Wanted To "Let Detroit Go Bankrupt" And Said The Demise Of The Auto Industry Would Be "Virtually Guaranteed" By A Government Bailout. According to Romney, "If General Motors, Ford and Chrysler get the bailout that their chief executives asked for yesterday, you can kiss the American automotive industry goodbye. It won't go overnight, but its demise will be virtually guaranteed. Without that bailout, Detroit will need to drastically restructure itself. With it, the automakers will stay the course — the suicidal course of declining market shares, insurmountable labor and retiree burdens, technology atrophy, product inferiority and never-ending job losses. Detroit needs a turnaround, not a check." [Romney Op-Ed, New York Times, 11/19/08]

Bain Owned GS Industries Filed For Bankruptcy And 750 People Lost Their Jobs. "Bain acquired GS Industries in 1993. The steelmaker borrowed heavily to modernize plants in Kansas City and North Carolina, as well as pay dividends to Bain investors. But as foreign competition increased and steel prices fell in the late 1990s, the company struggled to support the debt, according to Mark Essig, the former CEO. GS filed for bankruptcy in 2001, and shut down its money-losing Kansas City plant, throwing some 750 employees out of work." [Boston Globe, 1/27/08]

Workers at the paper plant in Marion were fired hours after Bain Capital purchased the plant. According to the Boston Herald, "Hours after Bain-owned Ampad Corp. bought the plant July 5 from Smith Corona Corp., the plant's 250 union workers were fired and told they could re-apply for their old jobs. Ampad scuttled Smith Corona's contract with the United Paperworkers International, seeking to make wage and labor conditions similar to its three other non-union plants. Drug tests were also required." [Boston Herlad, 9/23/94]

Tax Policy Center: Romney Tax Plan Would Raise Taxes On Families With Children With Income Below $200,000 By $2,041. According to a Tax Policy Center analysis of Romney's tax plan and promises, families with children that earn below $200,000 a year would see tax increases of $2,041. [Tax Policy Center, 8/1/12]

Tax Policy Center: Top 0.1% Would See $246,652 Tax Cut Per Year Under Romney Plan. According to a Tax Policy Center analysis of Romney's tax plan and promises, the top 0.1% would receive a tax cut of $246,652 per year. [Tax Policy Center, 8/1/12]

Romney Held Investments In Off-Shore Tax Havens And An Unusually Large IRA In Places Like Switzerland, Bermuda and The Cayman Islands. According to Bloomberg, "Romney's extensive investments in tax havens are drawing intensifying media scrutiny at the same time that revenue- starved governments around the world are cracking down on such practices. In recent weeks, Romney has faced increasing pressure to release additional years of tax returns because of questions over his 13.9 percent personal tax rate, his Swiss bank account, an IRA valued at as much as $102 million and his investments in Bermuda and the Cayman Islands." [Bloomberg, 08/06/12]

Romney Said He Would Not "Promise" Government Money To Help Students Pay For College But Suggested They Shop Around For Schools. According to New York Times, "The high school senior who stood up at Mitt Romney's town hall meeting here today was worried about how he and his family would pay for college, and wanted to hear what the candidate would do about rising college costs if elected...The answer: nothing. But his warning was clear: shop around and get a good price, because you're on your own. 'It would be popular for me to stand up and say I'm going to give you government money to pay for your college, but I'm not going to promise that,' he said, to sustained applause from the crowd at a high-tech metals assembly factory here. 'Don't just go to one that has the highest price. Go to one that has a little lower price where you can get a good education. And hopefully you'll find that. And don't expect the government to forgive the debt that you take on.' There wasn't a word about the variety of government loan programs, which have made it possible for millions of students to get college degrees. There wasn't a word urging colleges to hold down tuition increases, as President Obama has been doing, or a suggestion that the student consider a work-study program." [New York Times, 3/5/12]